The military is to require volunteer service members to pledge that they hold no other citizenship, after reports that the mother of a navy sailor made him a Chinese national without his knowledge.
The Ministry of National Defense is to issue a document pledging that volunteers do not possess citizenship of another nation before allowing them to join the military, top officers told a routine news conference in Taipei yesterday.
A sailor surnamed Yang (楊) who serves in the 168th Fleet had obtained a Chinese identification card, the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) reported on Monday, citing sources connected to an ongoing probe by the Investigation Bureau.
Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times
The sailor’s mother — a Chinese national who gained residency via marriage — had apparently acted without informing Yang, Navy Chief of Staff Vice Admiral Chiu Chun-jung (邱俊榮) said.
Military brass and ministry officials are working on the pledge and making improvements to the vetting system to ensure Taiwan remains the only nationality of volunteers, he said.
Yang joined the navy in April 2020 and formerly served on a Chi Yang-class frigate, but has since been transferred to “a posting that involves fewer sensitive missions,” Chiu said.
The military is working with the National Immigration Agency (NIA) to determine Yang’s next steps, as the man has expressed a wish to renounce his Chinese citizenship, he added.
Legal residents of China are not allowed to serve in the Taiwanese government or military, said army Major General Cheng Chia-chi (成家麒), who heads the human resources division at the ministry’s Department of Resource and Planning.
The rule is stipulated in the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Nationality Act (國籍法) and regulations governing the employment of government personnel, he said.
These laws exist for a good reason, as volunteer military personnel are duty-bound to serve the nation, Cheng said.
People with dual citizenship or legal status in China are disqualified from joining the armed forces under existing regulations, said army Colonel Huang Ming-chun (黃銘君), who serves in the Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Personnel.
Separately on Tuesday, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) reiterated that active military personnel and civil servants who apply for Chinese identity documents would face the full force of the law, including potentially being stripped of citizenship.
“The MAC has recently convened meetings with relevant agencies and instructed them to promote awareness that active military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers are prohibited from applying for household registration in China, as well as Chinese ID cards, permanent residence permits or residence permits,” the council said in a statement.
Those breaching the cross-strait act would face the full force of the law, it added.
That includes having their household registration canceled and losing their citizenship, the act stipulates.
It also stipulates that they cannot undergo military service or hold public office.
The Naval Fleet Command in a news release on Monday said that the sailor had informed the navy that his mother had obtained a Chinese ID card for him without his knowledge.
The command said it has assisted Yang in applying to the NIA expressing his intent to retain his Taiwanese nationality.
The command added that the NIA “preliminarily classified” Yang as a special case and said it would “handle subsequent matters per the NIA’s review findings and legal procedures.”
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS